Top of the World

I'm listening to this song right now, Patty Griffin's "Top of the World." Its so sweet and I just want to put it on repeat here at work! Here's some of the lyrics, but go here to listen to it online:
Myspace Music Discography for Patty Griffin.
The album is "Impossible Dream." Select it from the discography list in the left section of the player.

For writing, read over the lyrics and imagine the scene. What song is being sung by the songbird? Why did she break the songbird's wings? What would you do? What kind of bird? What are others doing, wanting, singing?

"Top Of The World"

There's a whole lot of singing
That's never gonna be heard
Disappearing every day
Without so much as a word
Somehow

I think I broke the wings
Off that little songbird
And she's never gonna fly
To the top of the world now
To the top of the world

....

I wished I'd had known you
Wished I had shown you
All of the things I
Was on the side
But I'd pretend to be sleeping
When you'd come in in the morning
To whisper goodbye
Go work in the rain
I don't know why
Don't know why

Cause everyone's singing
We just wanna be heard
Disappearing every day
Without so much as a word
Somehow?

Gonna grab a hold
Of that little songbird
And take her for a ride
To the top of the world
Right now
To the top of the world

Prompts from a friend

More writing prompts sent to me by a writer-friend early in December.

From Naming the World:

1. Write about a secret from the perspective of someone with the below statement:
* I never told anyone.
* I did tell one person. God help me.
* I never told anyone, but I’ll tell you.

2. Try writing about something you do every day and take for granted.

3. Starter: "She didn’t want to go, but..."

4. Choose an object that interests you enough to suggest it could be someone’s centering symbol. Why does it carry a metaphysical force?

5. You found a feather on the ground on the way over. Start talking to a person you know about this feather.

6. Pick a character that you hate and find something you love about them.

7. What is your character's obsession?

8. Destroy something you love.

Sentence and Phrase Prompts from Marge Piercy's Hard Loving:

1. I was a rabbit with twigs for bones.

2. Sometimes an old buffalo man... stares from your face."

3. Succulent as a burst apricot

4. A phosphorescent smear

5. Peeling an orange

Lines of Poetry

Its been forever since I last updated the blog here, so here's a few writing prompts in the form of quotes and poetic lines:

"The moment a little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing." - Eric Berne, psychiatrist

"I dreamed a knife like a song you can't whistle." - Frank Stanford, "The Singing Knives"

"Which failure cannot cast down nor success make proud." - Robinson Jeffers, "Rock and Hawk"

"...at night he remembers freedom And flies in a dream, the dawns ruin it." - Robinson Jeffers, "Hurt Hawks"

"I'd sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk." - Robinson Jeffers, "Hurt Hawks"

"We are safe to finish what we have to finish." - Robinson Jeffers, "The Bed By The Window"

"Be angry at the sun for setting." - Robinson Jeffers, "Be Angry at the Sun for Setting"

"Stark violence is still the sire of all the world's values." - Robinson Jeffers, "The Bloody Sire"

"Old violence is not too old to beget new values." - Robinson Jeffers, "The Bloody Sire"

"wore down on their wings" - Robinson Jeffers, "Their Beauty Has More Meaning"

Autumn prompt words

Go with the flow: Choose a prompting word or two from the following list and write about whatever comes to mind for 15-20 minutes without stopping.

Prompting Words List:

Season	pumpkins	fall	autumn	acorns	leaves
leaf	vibrant	red	yellow	orange	green
brown	branches	twigs	aroma	burning leaves	crunch leaves
gourds	pressing leaves	energy	beauty	woods	ghosts
feathers	corn	popcorn	arts and crafts	gifts	forest
apples	orchard	cranberry sauce	potatoes	cornbread	stuffing
green beans	apple pie	cooking	warm	harvest	cinnamon
abundance	thankful	cold	frost	snow	football
snowflakes	raking	leaf piles	campfires	hiking	nature

Lyric Prompts from Ryan Adams

Use these lyrics from songs by Ryan Adams as prompts!

"If I could I'd fold myself away like a card table." -- from "Oh My God, Whatever, Etc."

"But the light of the moon leads the way to the morning." -- from "Oh My God, Whatever, Etc."

"Its a little too late for goodbyes. Good morning. Open your eyes." -- from "Rip Off"

"Treasures that s he misses makes the man." -- from "Bartering Lines"

"You and I together, but only one of us is in love." -- from "Everybody Knows"

"Everything she says, oh, I've heard it all before." -- from "Two Hearts"

"Like a bad idea on a beautiful day." -- from "Two Hearts"

"Three words is all it takes to break your heart in two." -- from "Two Hearts"

"When they smile I get hypnotized and wanna go to bed." -- from "These Girls"

"I've been stranded on the doorstep." -- from "These Girls"

"We are only one push from the nest" - from "The Sun Also Sets"

"Sunset's just my lightbulb burning out." - from "Oh My Sweet Carolina"

"All the sweetest winds, they blow across the South." -- from "Oh My Sweet Carolina"

Bob Dylan Lyrics as Prompts

I've been listening to a lot of Bob Dylan lately and so I decided that this Wednesday's writing prompt will include single lines from various Bob Dylan songs. If there don't work for you, visit bobdylan.com and find a line or two that click with you.

“I saw a white ladder all covered with water” - “A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall”

“Spreading their wings 'neath the falling leaves.” - “Changing of the Guards”

“Were handing out the flowers that I'd given to you.” - “Changing of the Guards”

“But the next time I looked there was light in the room.” - “Day of the Locusts”

“I been lookin' at my shadow, I been watching the colors up above” - “Dirt Road Blues”

“it's hard labour and cold beans” - “Endless Highway”

“A place where there is no pain of birth.” - “Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking”

“Stand in one place till your feet begin to hurt.” - “Hard Times in New York Town”

“Highway 51 runs right by my baby's door” - “Highway 51”

“The next time you see me comin' you better run" - “Highway 61 Revisited”

All quotes above are from Bob Dylan songs.

Primer prompts

Sentences from old primer and grammar books... Use as prompts!

The river talked all night in the shoals.

My life is ghastly, the told the grass.

What kind of word?
Just a word.
Whatever. Hush.
Whisper it in my ear.

The cottonwoods went by like rows of bones.

There are no absolutes in human misery and things can always get worse.

Old whiskey bottles with their bleached labels lying on the wet tar of the rooftops.

I have been waiting for you for hours.

Does your brother dance well?

Why are you sitting here alone in the dark?

A little bit of common glass sometimes glitters like a diamond.

I see the man in the moon.

Mr. Jones bought a knife for his little boy.

Of all beasts he learned the language.

The two strangers were really Jupiter and Mercury.

A shaft of song, a winged prayer

Iris always wore a chain of raindrops for pearls, and a cloud for a robe.

The meanest flower that blows can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

I met a little cottage girl.

Writing and Small Images

Take any one or combination of the ideas below and insert them in your writing. There are no rules.

RADIO:
song on the radio, old transistor radio, broken radio, found radio, etc.

TEACUP/COFFEECUP:
chipped cup, cracked handle, saucer broken on the floor, found cup, something else in the cup other than tea or coffee, etc.

APRON:
pockets empty, pockets always have something in them, stained apron, crisp clean apron, ripped apron, etc.

CHAIR:
wooden chair with a loose bolt, chair with a worn seat cushion, chair with initials carved in the back slats, someone sitting in the chair, etc.

MAILBOX:
beaten mailbox, brick mailbox, empty mailbox, waiting by the mailbox, put in mailbox letters to nonexistent/lost/forgotten people, etc.

CHESS PIECE:
chess piece found under a couch or floor board, chess piece thrown at someone, chess piece carried in someone's pocket, chess piece given as a gift, etc.

Prompts from 1 Giant Leap

Most of these prompts are quotes from the film 1 Giant Leap. There are two quotes from a novel by Truman Capote I just finished reading, Other Voices, Other Rooms. Enjoy!

"This is what comes through to us." - from The Greek

"It's God making contact with itself." – Ram Dass (in reference to creation of art)

"While I thought I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die." – Leonardo da Vinci

"When you can't find the rhyme to fit the beat, You can't find the answer to feel complete." - ?

"There will be time to put on the face to meet the faces that you meet." – T.S. Eliot

"Every man and woman has their place. They have their entrances and they have their exits." - ?

"I have to learn not to waste everything my forefathers earned in tears." - Maxi Jazz

"Last night I went to sleep as a child
Only to wake up this morning finding I was a man.
In my hand I discovered the tools and the rage of my father.
In my heart I found the love and fears of my mother...........
We are not walking with the ghosts of the dead...
We are alive... In the spirit of our passion"
- Michael FRANTI, from 1 Giant Leap (film)

"...for anger seemed, if anything, more unsafe than love: only those who know their own security can afford either." - Truman Capote

"...he is no rose dependent upon thorn or root." - Truman Capote

Truman Capote quotes

Use the quotes below to spur your writing into a direction by either finding an image or idea in the quotes to spur on your writing, or write about something the quote reminds you.
------------------------

"...for so few of us learn that love is tenderness, and tenderness is not, as a fair proportion suspect, pity; and still fewer know that happiness in love is not the absolute focusing of all emotion in another: one has always to love a good many things which the beloved must come only to symbolize; the true beloveds of this world are in their lover's eyes lilac openings, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost voices, one's favorite suit, autumn and all the seasons, memory, yes, it being earth and water of existence, memory."

p. 141-142, Other Voices, Other Rooms. Truman Capote

"...there was always between us something muted, hushed; still our silence was not of a secret kind, for in itself it communicated that wonderful peace those who understand each other very well sometimes achieve..."

p. 143, Other Voices, Other Rooms. Truman Capote

"...this was not a hotel; indeed, had never been: this was the place where folks came when they went off the face of the earth, when they died but were not dead."

p. 118, Other Voices, Other Rooms. Truman Capote